Third place little consolation for Huskies

NEW YORK -- A passive Ben Gordon, a hurt Emeka Okafor and a University of Connecticut men's basketball team not playing with its trademark toughness spelled doom Wednesday night.

SEAN O'ROURKE

Published
12:00 am EST, Friday, November 28, 2003

The Huskies were outplayed in all facets of the game while making a horrendous 10 of 30 from the free throw line in a 77-61 Preseason NIT semifinal loss to Georgia Tech in front of just 7,607 at Madison Square Garden.

"From the opening tip, we got out butts kicked physically and mentally," UConn coach Jim Calhoun said. "Just two of our guys looked like Connecticut players. Denham Brown, who struggled but kept working at it, and Emeka Okafor, who was obviously suffering (with a back injury)."

Gone for the Huskies (3-1) will be their No. 1 ranking and a chance at the Preseason NIT championship today. Instead, UConn will meet Utah (3-1) in the third-place game today at 4:30 p.m. (ESPN2). Utah lost to Texas Tech 65-54 in Wednesday's first semifinal game.

"It's going to be a challenge for us," Calhoun said. "At (4:30), it's going to be a difficult time to go, but we'll find out more about ourselves."

What Calhoun will find out is how his team responds to adversity. On Wednesday, the Huskies failed their first test in that department.

"You can lose when you're doing the right things and working your butts off," Calhoun said. "Sometimes (winning) just doesn't happen. But (against Georgia Tech). we were getting dumped on, we were getting beat down the floor. Those are effort things."

Okafor, the Huskies' junior center and national player of the year candidate, is suffering from muscle spasms in his back and said he has been in pain since falling hard during a win over Sacred Heart Saturday in Hartford.

"He begged us to play. We told him he didn't have to, but the doctors reassured us that he can't do permanent damage," Calhoun said.

Okafor still played 34 minutes, grabbing 13 rebounds and blocking six shots, but he made just 2 of 10 from the field and 5 of 12 from the free throw line. He said he tried to block out the pain, but it was obvious from the minute he stepped on the floor he couldn't run, leap or be physical with any normalcy.

"It's giving me a lot of pain," Okafor said. "I can't twist, and I can't run that well."

Still, Okafor said he expects to start today against Utah.

"I'm going to keep going at it," Okafor said.

UConn needed Gordon to pick up the slack Wednesday, but the junior guard, who was averaging 25 points in his first three games, took just nine shots en route a 13-point performance. On a couple of occasions, he passed up open 3-pointers while on others he couldn't free himself from Georgia Tech defender Isma'il Muhammad, an athletic wing who had a 3-inch height advantage on Gordon.

Gordon said his off night had to do with both his passiveness and the Georgia Tech defense. He refused to use Okafor's injury as an excuse for the loss and said the Huskies' poor showing was a team-wide problem.

"It all comes down to effort," Gordon said. "We didn't do much right. We didn't rebound, we didn't stick with our offense."

Also hurting the Huskies was a high ankle sprain suffered by 6-10 freshman forward Josh Boone early in the first half, which limited him to 16 minutes. After the game, Boone limped badly and said the ankle was swollen. Boone's status for today is questionable.

While the national hoopla surrounding the Huskies will certainly now cool, Okafor put a positive spin on losing the nation's top ranking.

"Hey, we lost No. 1," Okafor said. "But half the fun of it will be getting it back."